I haven’t been making enough time for writing lately, and I am still technically halfway through a series of posts on self-care and community care. But in the interim, here’s a list of links that might be helpful as we prepare for what comes next, interspersed with some commentary from personal experience and actions & trainings I’ve attended over the past few years and the intense “omg train everyone on everything now” last few months.

This list isn’t comprehensive and skews toward resources for queer and trans API people, since I’m pulling from my work and personal Facebook posting. I also haven’t done the best job of tracking all of what I’ve shared, so I may update later with more links and will note the edits/added content with a note at the bottom of the post.

ETA (as I’m compiling) — trying to make this list as not-overwhelming as possible. If you do one thing, start with locking down your digital security and making sure your address isn’t available online. I have also tried to move most of my commentary to sub-bullets and bolded the action steps, so you can tl;dr your way on down the list.

Image description: Bright orange capital letters are attached to a mesh net strung between lightweight metal poles, creating a banner that reads “PROTECT THOSE YOU LOVE.”

legal protections for transgender individuals (e.g. updating your passport with the expedited process based on President Obama’s executive order, since executive orders can be reversed at any time);

immigration advice for undocumented folks and those seeking asylum based on an LGBTQ identity; summaries of potential legal changes;

and steps you can take to protect queer families (second-parent adoption, do you need to get married now, wills, etc.)

Informed Immigranthas “a list of over 600 immigrant rights/immigrant-serving organizations and donation links; legal information FAQs in English & Spanish (compiled by legal experts at NILC, CCC, SEIU, and others based on questions received by organizations in the states); a legal resource pdf with known and regularly used legal services look up tools; and NILC’s know your rights document.”

Community safety:

Talk to your neighbors. Get to know the people around you, and build with these folks. Remember that calling the police over noise complaints or misunderstandings can be fatal to your neighbors, or for you.

So don’t call the police (links pulled from an email to myself in July; drafting emails is one of my many forms of non-successful blogging):

Check out the Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective’s pod mapping worksheet and guide: “Your pod is made up of the people that you would call on if violence, harm or abuse happened to you; or the people that you would call on if you wanted support in taking accountability for violence, harm or abuse that you’ve done; or if you witnessed violence or if someone you care about was being violent or being abused.”

The most important takeaway I got from Mia Mingus’ TJ 101 training was “building analysis was much easier than building the relationship and trust required for one’s pod,” that is, relationships are built on trust, and we can build on these foundations to share political analysis, and we are less likely to approach strangers who share our politics when we cause or experience harm.

I have several lending copies of The Revolution Starts At Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities. Queer and transgender writers, many of whom are people of color, address harm and abuse, community accountability, and building safety without involving the state.

As we enter into a period of heightened (but, let’s be real, pre-existing) surveillance and threats to our safety, it is so so important that we are vigilant about addressing harm within our interpersonal relationships. Let’s not let urgency and scarcity and fear get in the way of being accountable to each other. Interdependency includes checking in with newly coupled folks, making sure they stay in community, normalizing conversations about consent, boundaries, harm, abuse, codependency. Moving past shame & guilt & judgment so that folks can have hard conversations instead of isolating themselves when they’re experiencing things in interpersonal relationships that don’t feel great.

Buy a copy from AK Press here. (I also have a book club discount for AK Press, if you know me irl, we can talk.)

Also, check out thesePDFs from the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence (WSCADV) to spark conversations with your people about their relationships. They are fun and illustrated like comic books!

Note: OK, so I didn’t do this until after I published this post. I printed a PDF of the results, which includes “possible relatives” and “possible associates,” both of which are full of my actual family members, and I will also be opting them out.

Crash Override Network “is a crisis helpline, advocacy group and resource center for people who are experiencing online abuse.”

Use strong passwords. From several digital security trainings, folks suggested using password managers, and I can’t remember which was the most secure, so I will update.

Text through Signal. You will need to download the app, plus link to a phone number (a Google voice number works on a tablet version of the app if you don’t have a cell phone). Signal uses end-to-end encryption and only tracks metadata about when the app is opened.

Notes: You can set messages to delete after they’re read. You can use Signal to text folks who don’t have the app, but your messages will not be encrypted. Consider using Signal as your default chat app and encouraging others to do so, too, to normalize security culture. Also, think about what you’re signaling* if you and all of your closest friends mysteriously choose to communicate through Signal on the same day. (* attempt at pun intended)

Keep in mind: People can still screencap your conversations, so it also matters who you’re inviting in to your messaging groups.

(P.S. According to a cursory Google search, WhatsApp doesn’t have a backdoor, but folks I trust have still recommended Signal over other encrypted messaging services, including over Telegram and Fireside.)

If you are meeting about sensitive matters, put away everything that has a microphone. These can be turned on remotely to transmit your conversations. Reportedly, this works even if an iPhone is turned off, and airplane mode is safer. Even safer is collecting all the cell phones and laptops and putting them in a separate room. Someone I know also turned on music on one of the phones while they were in a jar in a separate room, so that all of the phones got to have a little dance party and not hear anything else. ‾\_(ツ)_/‾ why not?

Protest/personal safety:

Surveillance Self Defense‘s “Attending Protests“ has a step-by-step guide to walk through to prepare yourself, including locking down your phone, documenting actions, and what to do if you’re arrested. It’s largely centered on how to protect your phone, but the links and other information are also great general protest tips, and the writing and analysis are a good example of how to get yourself in a security culture mindset.

Understand the risks you’re taking when you attend a direct action or protest, or even rallies that are coordinated with the police, as situations with large groups of people can change very quickly, and there are plenty of groups who have used tactics that put others at risk.

For example, I’ve heard that CHP doesn’t think they need to give a dispersal order before they start making arrests for highway shutdowns.

A dispersal order is given by police informing folks that they must leave an area or face arrest. If you do not leave, you can be arrested. Note: LAPD (and police elsewhere) have arrested folks while they left. (For example, in LA in November 2014, LAPD gave a dispersal order at a BLM protest, and then RevCom misdirected protesters into police lines.

Laws and ordinances vary by city and state, and prosecutorial discretion also plays a role in charges.

Getting arrested, in and of itself, is not a tactic or a strategy.

Pay attention to / watch out for infiltrators and abusers.

If someone’s behavior seems off to you, follow your instincts and intuition. Remember that women and femmes are socialized to be polite to men and masculinity and to comply rather than make a scene. Predators know this, too.

Gavin de Becker’s book The Gift of Fear has a great breakdown of how predators use specific behaviors to test boundaries and groom their targets. (Content note: I read this book quite a few years ago, and a friend I was talking to recently pointed out that there’s quite a bit of survivor blame.)

Note: Water makes pepper spray feel worse. If it’s all you have, it’s best to flush your eyes as quickly as possible. Tilt the affected person’s head back or lay back and pour so that the pepper spray flows off of their face.

Don’t use liquid antacids with food coloring in them.

Be careful about using squeeze bottles with pointy tips, because eyeballs. Street medics suggest using cheap squeeze-top water bottles, or puncture a hole in the top of a water bottle cap and use.

If you are still in the middle of a chaotic scene, pull that person to the side / away from the crowd first. Narrate to them what you’re doing and get consent, because their vision is probably going to be compromised. (e.g. Is it OK if we lead you over here so we can treat you?

If you get tear gassed, when you get home, put the contaminated clothes in a plastic bag for later decontamination and shower with cold water to avoid opening your pores.

Come with friends and don’t get separated. Avoid leaving the crowd and watch out for police snatch squads.

The far right is very good at combing through pictures and doxxing people. Mask up.

Write any necessary phone numbers you may need directly on your skin in sharpie.

Have an offsite plan for emergencies if you have not been heard from by X time coordinated with someone offsite.

Make sure all mobile devices are charged!!

If you plan on going to jail, plan it: bail, lawyer, time off from work, witnesses i.e.: a cadre. Don’t just go to jail without training.

Beware folks inciting violence. Most of them are police/ feds. Watch out for hook ups for the same reason. Get to know the crowd. They will set you up.

Know Your Rights:ACLU has a list of resources here, including printable wallet cards, and the SoCal chapter is offering many free trainings. A huge caveat: Knowing your rights and following these steps gives you legal recourse if your rights are violated. We have seen what happens when Black and brown folks choose not to give in to police officers’ demands. So yes, know your rights. Also take time to think through how you would like to react in situations involving police, and how you plan to stay calm enough to react in the ways that are safest for you and/or most in line with your values/integrity/liberation/desire to survive. These things may all be in conflict, and you should take the time, now, to think about what is most important to you.

Suicide and support hotlines (please share and repost!):

Trans Lifeline (All hotline operators are transgender. Note that this is not a 24-hour hotline. Shifts are listed here http://hotline.translifeline.org/): 1-877-565-8860

Trevor Lifeline (24 hours): 1-866-488-7386

National Suicide Prevention Hotline, 1-800-273-8255 (TALK). They offer services in more than 150 languages.

The Asian LifeNet Hotline, 1-877-990-8585, works in Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, and Fujianese.

Other tips/thoughts (aka the things left on my brainstorm phone note list that I will maybe write more about later:

listen

understand how you take up space

have a safety plan

DV, SA, codependency

keep each other safe, go in groups

informed consent — if you put people at risk without their knowledge, you’re not a revolutionary, you’re manipulating people

make decisions about what you’re willing to do; define your terms

Ok, I love you, drink water and eat something with protein and put on comfortable shoes. Also maybe print out this PDF (Sinope’s “Everything Is Awful and I’m Not Okay: questions to ask before giving up”) and keep it by your bed.

[Edited on Jan. 20, 2017 at 4:09 p.m. to include the Surveillance Self-Defense link.]

The numbered points below were my outline notes to myself while fixing this draft; I figured I could just leave it as a tl; dr. (The 3rd point will actually be addressed more in the next post.)

people are tired

we’re tired because we’re oppressed

so don’t bring that shit into your personal life

In my intro post to this ~self-care series~, I mentioned that this year has been challenging but amazing, and also tiring. For me, personally, it’s been a year of healing and growth, along with processing a lot of learning that came out of living in Portland for a year and being miserable for a lot of it. (More on that in the post about curating and living in a bubble, but here’s a preview.)

I have also felt tiredness from people around me, and I think a huge factor in feeling that from the community has come from intentionally focusing my energy and time on building community with QTPOC and centering these folks in my life. When I think about the daily trauma we experience on the intersections of multiple axes of oppression, I am often amazed that we’re not more tired.

I also believe that there are different kinds of tired.

There’s the kind that comes from dealing with all the bullshit around us, the tired of having to explain for the 47th time (today) that “reverse racism” is not a real thing, the tired of being constantly misgendered and having a piece of your identity forcibly and repeatedly erased, the tired of feeling invisible and hypervisible, the tired that comes from having to expend a huge chunk of your energy to pass as neurotypical for a full work day (while also remembering all the different edits to yourself you have to make to fit in to the norms of professional workplace behavior), and then also the many things I’m privileged not to have to experience, including navigating institutional ableism, anti-Black racism, Islamophobia, and classism, and all the ways these tired-making things intersect.

And then there is a different kind of tired that comes from holding hope and believing that a different world is possible, and dreaming alternative realities and bridging gaps between people to bring those worlds into existence, and making beauty out of the terrible.

That second kind of tired, for me at least, comes from a place of wholeheartedness, and it feels much easier to bounce back from. That kind of tired feels like next-day-sore muscles after a good workout, or the slight buzz of finishing a Sunday crossword.

It’s important to think about “self-care” in context because 1) We should understand that our need for self-care is directly related to the harm we experience and 2) For me, and it seems like for many of the folks I consider my people, it’s hard to make time for self-care when we feel like there’s so much work to do.

On that second point, I genuinely want to move toward a place of self-care because we need it, but that truth seems to be constantly drowned out by the nagging voice saying “maybe we all need to try a little bit harder.” It has helped to try to consider these two voices not as a dichotomy, but as two things that are true to me.

Am I saying that people who aren’t doing the work aren’t worthy of care? No. But a part of me still has a lot of feelings that come up around this. That is, I’m not writing a bunch of posts about self-care for the people who are jetting off for the weekend to do yoga on a mountain so that they can feel fit and recharged the following Monday when they go back to work for their multinational corporation.

However, I do think for organizers (and everyone) that the need to disentangle our worth (and that we are worthy of care) from the work is an important part of moving toward wholeness. I am looking for ways to think of worthiness and self-care as things that are inherent to everyone, including myself, regardless of what they or I contribute to the movement.

I was lucky to get a ticket to see Laverne Cox speak at USC last week (thank you, Queer and Ally Student Assembly!), and in addition to talking about her life and tying her own journey as a Black trans woman to Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I A Woman?”, she also took questions from the audience. The last question was “How can organizers doing social justice work sustain themselves (emotionally, etc.) in the movement long-term?”* Laverne’s response centered on recognizing that “the list of injustices is really, really long,” and that for her, it’s important to detach from the work and not become “codependent” with it. That it’s possible to separate her own self-worth from the work, without losing her will to fight the fight:

I have so many moments of ‘Laverne, you could be doing more, you should be doing more,’ and I’m doing the best that I can. And I have to be able to just give that to myself. And I think that it’s important to give that to ourselves; to know that we’re doing the best that we can, and when we know better, we’ll do better. […]

So many of the challenges I’ve had throughout my life, my worthiness has been on the line. I have been hustling for my worthiness, trying to be enough.

And those moments when I can take my worthiness off the table, when I can understand that worthiness is a birthright, those are the moments that are deeply healing for me — when I understand that because I am a child of god, I am worthy — those are the moments when I can stand in my truth, and stand in various spaces, and feel like I am enough, I have enough, and I do enough.

I recognize that this is still a process and that I easily fall into the habit of leveraging judgments on myself and others, that I carry guilt around feeling like my own care is selfish or solipsistic. (And I do think that there is room for necessary critiques of how folks with privilege can mobilize “self-care” as a concept to reinforce their privilege.)

But if for no other reason than that getting stuck in guilt does nothing to serve the movement, I am repeating, until I internalize it fully, “I am worthwhile. I matter because I exist.”

Readings and resources:

Original title: “Context matters: Maybe we should be thinking about why we need so much self-care (OR the world we live in is often a deeply fucked up place and instead of feeling guilty about not being more grounded, maybe we can shift the blame outside of ourselves)”

Social Justice League’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Polite: The Issue of Nice versus Good” — I link to this post all the time, usually as a starting point for folks who don’t understand why tone-policing is oppressive, but I think it also has a great breakdown of kyriarchy and how folks demanding “niceness” from oppressed people are part of the problem. (This piece is a good reminder of how structural inequality functions in insidious ways, and how this loops in to microaggressions, gaslighting, and silencing of oppressed folks, as well.) Note: Piece includes the (transmisogynistic) t-slur, as an example of how that slur is not equivalent to being called a racist.

This is an intro post to a multi-part series (of an indeterminate number of parts) on self-care and community care that started as one post, and then it was too many words, so now it is more than one post.

This year has been … a lot of things. A huge part of me wants to curl up into a ball (maybe surrounded by puppies and kittens, also curled up, resting their fuzzy little faces onto their tiny fuzzy paws) and take a break from everything. I am tired, and it feels like people in my communities are also tired.

I’ve been meaning to write a post about self-care and trauma, with links to resources, for at least the last 6 months. I’m recognizing in finally writing this post that I have been thinking “I need to write that self-care post,” while my heart and life have been traveling down a different path of “What does community care look like?”

By the way, this is my favorite hobby/self-care practice (working on my photo book “Hey, can I hold that?”)

Thankfully, this hard and tiring year has also been amazing and rewarding in many, many ways, in large part because I have met and deepened relationships with so many rad, radical QTPOC organizers. I have learned so much from reading their status updates and blog posts, from talking through trauma and #organizerproblems over meals, from observing how folks hold space.

I’ve learned about what I want care and access support and communities to look like, how I want to show up for folks, how to ask for support and articulate needs and boundaries. These are all things that I recognize are ongoing practices, things I hope I will strive to be better at for the rest of my life.

So. I am accepting that I don’t have all of the answers, which is like, probably important to growth? And part of my self-care process and accepting imperfections? I guess?

My original post had paragraphy subheads to help break up the text, so I will leave them here as a preview of what I think follow-up posts will be, with links added in once other posts go live:

“Self-care for sustainability” is part of the problem. If we’re only doing self-care so we can work more, how can we disentangle our self-worth from the work? Hint: I don’t think we can. (Also, this is capitalistic and ableist.)

“You’re living in a bubble”: Yes I am, and also you’re not invited any more. (But I also believe in transformative justice, so here’s some reading and a snack, I hope we’ll be able to share bubble space later.)

What does the opposite of a bleak disastrous hellscape of loneliness actually look like?* Moving from self-care to community care.

[Something about trauma, secondary trauma and therapy, which I had already decided to break out into a separate post.]

Here is an oddly curated list of resources.**

* This is particularly odd without the context of the section that comes before it, which might not make it through edits.
** I may break up the resources a bit to go with each post, and then create a final post with all of the links, along with any additional suggestions I gather from the comments or Facebook. Please comment with resources you’ve found helpful!

Anyway, here’s Wonderwall a partial list of things that help me maintain perspective:

my hobbies: baking bread and picking up animals and taking pictures with them

journaling, even if it’s only for 10 minutes at a time (if 10 seems daunting, start with 5; if it helps, try promising yourself that you won’t go back and read what you wrote for a month, or 6 months, or ever, and find a good hiding spot for your journal)

QTPOC workouts: being able to move in a space that is affirming and inclusive, that welcomes all bodies, openly encourages modifications, and where folks are actively respectful of pronouns and thoughtful about how they are communicating feels almost unrealistically magical but it’s real